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Dessert

Sweet Potato Souffle

A baked sweet potato souffle made with pulp, eggs, butter, cream, sugar, and optional wine and orange rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,371 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pulp

  1. Boil sweet potatoes until tender, then yield 1 pint of pulp.

  2. Dry the pulp well and press it through a sieve.

Make the batter

  1. Add butter, cream, sugar, and flavoring to the pulp.

  2. When cool, stir in the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and cover with fine macaroon or sponge cake crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven and serve immediately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Orange + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sweet potato + vanillatop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sweet potato + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together191 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet potato pulp
Provides the bulk and body of the souffle, with its moisture and mild sweetness.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the base, while whipped whites lift the mixture and give it a light, airy structure.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, producing a softer, richer texture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the dish brown lightly at the surface.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped and folded gently; overmixing knocks out the air, so the souffle bakes flat and dense instead of rising.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, cream, sugar, wine, vanilla, egg, butter):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, cream, sugar, wine, vanilla, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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